# Curious about the percussion on a certain B-52s song

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/curious-about-the-percussion-on-a-certain-b-52s-song/824605>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [November 16, 2018, 6:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/curious-about-the-percussion-on-a-certain-b-52s-song/824605 "2018-11-16T06:13:44Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![brujaja](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4af34b/32.png) [@brujaja](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brujaja)\
**Post date:** [November 16, 2018, 6:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/curious-about-the-percussion-on-a-certain-b-52s-song/824605/1 "2018-11-16T06:13:44Z")

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–which is “Give Me Back My Man.”

The percussion varies in timbre, and sounds almost like when you get a large sheet of metal, and sort of wave it back and forth?

Does anybody know what was used for this track? Thanks!

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**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\
**Post date:** [November 16, 2018, 8:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/curious-about-the-percussion-on-a-certain-b-52s-song/824605/2 "2018-11-16T08:26:42Z")

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Are you talking about the hand clapping sounds (as opposed to the drumming or glockenspiel?) I think that’s just synth claps.

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**Author:** ![Small\_Clanger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9fc348/32.png) [@Small\_Clanger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Small_Clanger)\
**Post date:** [November 16, 2018, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/curious-about-the-percussion-on-a-certain-b-52s-song/824605/3 "2018-11-16T14:10:59Z")

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I’m pretty sure it’s synthesised hand-claps or just gated noise.  
Whatever it is, it sounds the way it does because it’s run through a filter emphasising different frequencies on each ‘hit’.  
Typically a synth filter would be driven by an ADSR envelope or be cycling\*, but it doesn’t sound like it’s doing that in this case.  
\*Another option is sample-and-hold but the grouped hits sound a bit too organised for that.